The Armourer bustled in carrying a big bag full of useful bits and pieces, with half a dozen lab techs scurrying after him like eager puppies. And Callan Drood arrived late, of course, complaining bitterly over something inappropriate with the Blue Fairy, who pretended politely to be listening.
And that was that. These people would lead the four main strike forces, dealing with the most dangerous situations, and the most nearly completed towers. All the other strike forces were being led by our most experienced field agents. I should have been leading one of the forces. Preferably with Molly at my side. But I had taken on all the duties of leadership when I took command of the family, and that included standing by and watching helplessly as others went off to fight and die at my command. Martha said it never got any easier. Which made it a lot simpler to understand how she’d ended up the way she was.
Harry strolled over to join Molly and me, Roger close at his side. Harry ostentatiously ignored Molly to smile at me.
“Well now, Eddie,” he said, making a brave stab at casual. “When are you going to whip your latest miracle out of your hip pocket and amaze us all? Just how are we going to burst into all these nests and ghoulvilles without being detected? I know you love to save your brilliant save-the-day ideas to the very last moment, but we really are getting terribly close to the off.”
I grinned, took the Merlin Glass out of my pocket, and shook it up to full size. It stood on end in the middle of the War Room, like a door to absolutely everywhere. Which, technically speaking, it was. Everyone crowded together before the Glass as I gave a brief rundown on its capabilities, and we all stared dubiously at the frowning faces of our reflections. We didn’t look much like the people who were going to save the world.
“The Merlin Glass sees the present,” I said. “Anywhere and everywhere. And it can function as a gateway to anywhere it sees. That is going to be our way in, people. We tell the Glass to tune in on a nest, it shows us the interior of the ghoulville, and then we, or rather you, go through the Glass with your strike force and kick the shit out of the Loathly Ones. What could be simpler?”
The Armourer and his lab crew scurried around the base of the Merlin Glass, connecting it up with a whole mess of rainbow colour-coded cables to the communication desks and the display screens; so we could follow what was going on in more than one nest at once. Molly hovered over them, beefing up the connections with an overlay of magical supports. Harry looked at me abruptly.
“This is how you knew about Mr. Stab and Penny, before anyone else. You were watching. You pervy little Peeping Tom, you. Who else have you been secretly observing all this time?”
“I lead the family,” I said calmly. “I watch everyone.”
Harry looked at Mr. Stab, standing off to one side. “We’re going to have to do something about him, Eddie.”
“When you’ve worked out what, and how, let me know,” I said. “For now, we need him.”
“We won’t always need him,” said Harry.
“No,” I said. “We won’t.”
“It’s time,” said the Matriarch, and we all turned to look at her. She stood tall and commanding before us, every inch the gray-haired warrior queen. She fixed her cold gaze on me. “All the troops are assembled and ready to begin. All preparations have been made. Give the word, Edwin.”
“Yes,” I said. I turned to the Merlin Glass. “Show me the present,” I said. “Show me the interior of the ghoulville with the most nearly completed tower.”
Our reflections disappeared from the mirror in a moment, replaced by swirling patterns of energy that hurt the eye to look at, and then the Merlin Glass punched through the dimensional barrier separating the Loathly Ones’ nest from the rest of the world, and there the infected town was, clearly visible through the Glass. I’d never seen one before, only heard descriptions and read reports. It wasn’t enough to prepare you for the real thing. For what had once been a human town, a human place, but wasn’t anymore.
The light in the ghoulville was painfully bright, fierce, almost intolerable to human eyes. It didn’t seem to bother any of the drones as they scurried and scuttled through the narrow streets. They didn’t talk to each other, or even look at each other. They didn’t need to. All their thoughts originated in the nest hive mind, the massmind. They didn’t look human any more, didn’t move in human ways. Either because they didn’t need to pretend, away from outside eyes, or because they’d forgotten how to. Even the buildings of the ghoulville looked alien, infected. They slumped at odd angles; the wood and stone and brick looked rotten, diseased, crawling with their own purulent life. Strange lights blazed in the windows, unhealthy lights, and alien silhouettes did awful, alien things.
“The gravity fluctuates too,” said Callan, standing beside me. For the first time he sounded subdued, almost unnerved. “Up and down, left and right, can snap back and forth without any warning. Directions mean nothing. Streets writhe and twist with a life of their own, and suddenly turn around and dump you right back where you started. Doesn’t affect the drones. Probably because they don’t think like us any more. The air… is barely breathable, even when filtered through the golden mask, and it stinks of blood and offal and decay. All the drones here are dead or dying, burnt up by the energies within them. When I finally die and go to Hell, for all the terrible things I’ve done for this family, at least it’ll look familiar.”
“You haven’t been taking your medication again, have you, Callan?” said the Blue Fairy. “Have some of mine, dear. Peps you up nicely.”
“There’s nothing wrong with me!” Callan said angrily. “It’s the ghoulvilles that are wrong! And you have to be prepared for them, for everything they can throw at you. Or you’ll never get to the bloody towers.”
“The armour will help,” the Armourer said gruffly, having finished his work with the Merlin Glass. “Trust in the armour, and your training, and you’ll all do fine. Nerves are normal before a mission. Back when I was a field agent, I used to puke my guts up every time I had to go over the Berlin Wall into East Germany. I swear I looked down once and saw one of my kidneys floating in the toilet bowl.”
“Thank you, Uncle Jack,” I said.
“Intestine, I thought, that can’t really be intestine, can it?”
“Thank you, Uncle Jack!”
He sniffed and looked the Merlin Glass over with professional approval. “Whatever else you might say about Merlin Satanspawn, and whole books have been written on the subject, he did do good work.”
“The drones can’t see or hear us?” said Mr. Stab. “They have no idea we’re watching?”
“None at all,” the Armourer said cheerfully. “I have given you the perfect element of surprise. Don’t waste it.”
Giles Deathstalker drew his great sword, and almost unconsciously everyone fell back a little to give him more room.
“It’s time,” he said. “Let’s do it.”
“Not exactly El Cid, is he?” said the Blue Fairy. “Whatever happened to inspirational speeches? I very definitely feel I could do with a little inspiring, right now.”
Giles looked at him. “Don’t screw this up, or I’ll have you flayed.”
“He’s a Drood,” said the Blue Fairy.
I commanded the Merlin Glass to open a gateway into the four main nests, and one by one the great display screens flared into life, showing views inside the ghoulvilles. The Armourer’s connections were working. I looked around once, silently saying Good-bye and Godspeed, and then Giles walked straight into the Merlin Glass and through into the ghoulville beyond. Two hundred golden figures followed him through, filing quickly through the War Room, and then Harry and Roger went through, followed by their strike force, and so on and so on. It didn’t take nearly as long as I thought to send all the leaders and their strike forces through, though my voice went harsh yelling commands to the Merlin Glass to lock onto new locations. The stamp and clatter of armoured feet was deafening in the War Room, and I had to shout above it to be heard. All the display screens were up and running now, showing strike force after strike force slamming into unsuspecting drones. And then the last Drood went through, and there was nothing more to be done except watch.
All the various attacks on the nests happened simultaneously, spread over all the display screens. You couldn’t watch them all if you tried. Too much was happening all at once. But this is how it happened, battle by battle, backed up by survivors’ tales.
The first thing the Armourer did was to help Molly seal off the Merlin Glass, so that Droods could still pass through, but no drones could get out. We couldn’t allow any of the Loathly Ones to escape. They all had to die. Even though what happened to the drones wasn’t their fault. They didn’t ask to be infected. No, it was our fault, the Droods’ fault, for bringing the Loathly Ones through into our reality in the first place. Our mess, for us to clean up.
Giles Deathstalker’s ghoulville used to be a small town in New Zealand, called Heron’s Reach. A very small town, surrounded by sheep country, so far off the beaten track no one had even noticed it was missing yet. We knew. We’re Droods. We know everything. It looked like it might have been a nice place, originally. Now infected drones streamed through its narrow streets like maggots in a wound, under an alien light so harsh it blasted away any trace of a shadow. Many of the drones were malformed, twisted and turned by the other-dimensional forces burning within their flesh, and they moved with eerie syncopation, like flocking birds.
They all stopped what they were doing the moment Giles and his strike force appeared out of nowhere, slamming into the nearest drones and cutting them down without a moment’s hesitation or mercy. The drones surged forward as one, throwing themselves at the invading force. Some had claws, or barbed hands. Some had tools or axes to use as weapons. They all had the same horrid alien look on their faces as they swarmed all over the golden armoured figures, trying to drag them down through sheer force of numbers.
Giles led from the front, swinging his long sword with impressive skill and strength. The heavy blade cut off heads, burst in chests, sliced through flesh and bone without even slowing. He cut down drones or swept them aside, always pressing forward, trampling bodies under his bloody boots. Golden armoured men and women urged forward after him, striking down drones with heavy fists, or extruded golden blades. Blood flew on the air, offal splashed in the streets. The drones didn’t scream as they fell, or beg for mercy. They just kept coming until their bodies failed them, and even then they tried to clutch at golden legs or feet until they died. Giles hacked and sliced and stabbed, swinging his heavy sword in long deadly arcs as though it was weightless. He laughed and cried out happily as he killed, and blood soaked his armour and spattered his grinning face. The Deathstalker was a warrior, doing what he was born to do, and loving every minute of it.
Not all his strike force felt the same. Though most fought on with the professional skill of their training, concentrating on the goal of their mission… some just couldn’t do it. They simply weren’t killers, and no amount of training could make them one. They did what they could, and then turned away from the slaughter and came home. No one said anything as they lurched back through the Glass. Medical staff were there, to lead them off to the infirmary. We understood.
Some didn’t make it. Drones swarmed all over them the moment they left the main force and buried them under sheer numbers, beating on their golden armour with misshapen fists.
The strike force couldn’t turn back to rescue them. Speed was of the essence in this operation. They had to reach the tower and take it out with the Armourer’s new bomb, before the drones could come up with some new alien weapon to stop them, as they had on the Nazca Plain. So get in, do the job, and get out. Nothing else could be allowed to matter. The Droods pressed forward, killing everything that wasn’t them, guarding each other’s sides and backs.
We could see the tower, on the far edge of town. A hundred feet tall and more, jagged and asymmetrical, built to alien specifications from strange technologies and organic components. It stood tall and arrogantly proud against an incandescent sky, blazing with unnatural lights. It looked alive and aware, as though it knew we were coming and was struggling to perform its awful function before we could stop it. To bring the Hungry Gods through, just to spite us.
The Loathly Ones drones were clogging the streets now, packing them shoulder to shoulder as they surged forward to attack the Droods. Giles and his people were having to cut and hack a path through them, like forging a path through thick jungle. Blood and bodies covered the ground, and slowed the strike force’s advance even further. But still Giles led the way, something almost inhuman in his fierce refusal to be stopped. He encouraged his people on with far-future battle cries that meant nothing to them, but stirred their blood anyway. They stuck right behind him, striking down the enemy with dogged determination.
The drones fought us with every weapon they had, from tools and axes they just picked up, to clawed and barbed distorted hands, to a handful of rifles and shotguns. None of them were any use against Drood armour, and Giles was just too good at what he did to be hurt. Blades couldn’t cut the gold, bullets were absorbed by it, and clawed hands scrabbled uselessly at golden face masks. But when Giles finally came in sight of the base of the tower, all that changed.
Up close, the tower seemed to be coming alive, like some great beast waking from a long slumber with murder on its mind. Powerful energies coalesced around it, as though other-dimensional aspects of the construct were imprinting themselves on our reality from outside. The tower looked… realer than its surroundings. Realer than the Droods. Several of the golden figures had to turn away, unable to face what was happening. Giles stood firm. Nothing in the ghoulville had phased him so far, even though he had none of the armour’s built-in protections. I had to wonder if the Deathstalker had far-future technology implanted within him, that he hadn’t got around to telling us about.